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In the UK, EVs are cheaper than petrol cars, thanks to Chinese competition

180 points by breve

by martinald

2 subcomments

Not quite. The UK govt has a rolling target of how many EVs are sold as a proportion of all vehicles. The manufacturers get "fined" £15k per ICE car sold over the target. The targets are ramping up rapidly - 22% in 2024, 28% in 2025, 33% in 2026, etc, reaching 80% (AFIAK, keeps changing) in 2030. There's various trading mechanisms in place and what not so it's a bit more complicated than this.
So it's far better to sell EV below cost (Chinese or not) to get more sold than have to a pay £15k for an ICE car.
The Chinese manufacturers are arguably at double advantage here as they have more BEV to sell so it's far easier for them meet the targets, and they can 'sell' the excess to the Western manufacturers (and further subsidise their EVs!).
I'm not personally against it, I got a brand new EV on a lease recently for close to free after all the tax advantages, and it's not like the Western manufacturers didn't have time to prepare...?

by canbus

0 subcomment

Right, brand new. But I think if the UK government want everyone to be using EVs they really need to help out the used market by incentivising it in some way. I can't get much other than a Nissan leaf or Renault Zoe under £10k second hand, or some massive SUV which I don't want. So then I'll buy an ICE powered car instead...

by cjs_ac

3 subcomments

> And the presence of lower-cost alternatives can force non-Chinese brands to have to compete, rather than sitting on their laurels and gathering profits from expensive land yachts as the competition’s prices are inflated by tariffs. This is why the UK is getting Honda’s super cool Super-N, and the US isn’t.
The Honda Super-N EV will also be released in Australia, New Zealand, and other countries in Southeast Asia that were also British colonies: this decision has nothing to do with tariffs and everything to do with left-hand-drive vs. right-hand-drive.

by nickserv

2 subcomments

Unlike the EU and the US, the UK doesn't have any major car companies anymore, so there's less of an incentive for them to apply tariffs on Chinese imports.

by mig39

2 subcomments

Coming to Canada soon, though in a limited way:
https://nationalpost.com/news/massive-risk-chinese-evs-are-t...
Hopefully this means competition with the other EV manufacturers in Canada too.

by aunty_helen

1 subcomments

For anyone who hasn't been in a BYD, maybe because their government protects them from the open market, I'm sorry. It's over. We lost.

by schnitzelstoat

1 subcomments

Meanwhile in the EU, Chinese EVs face crippling tariffs that make them totally unaffordable.

by amelius

6 subcomments

Did anyone think of the national security implications?

by ab_testing

1 subcomments

Just to give you an idea of what it costs to lease an EV in the UK. I use lingcars often for pricing and it is peanuts compared to the US.
https://www.lingscars.com/car-lease-deals/?fuelTypes=electri...

by dzonga

1 subcomments

> Consumers accept that they can pay more for a better product, so when you compare a Model 3 to an ICE BMW 3 series, and they’re similar in price, but the Model 3 offers better technology and drive characteristics, then on balance you’re getting a better deal with the Model 3.
statements like these are what turn some people away. cz they're not sincere.
you can easily compare the costs between models within a manufacturer - BMW ICE version vs Electric version
& on a head to head basis the old guard of auto makers e.g BMW, Mercedes make better vehicles than Tesla.

by testing22321

5 subcomments

Meanwhile Ford’s CEO said that if Chinese EVs are allowed into USA it will destroy the US automakers.
He is not even hiding the fact US automakers make a more expensive inferior product, but that US consumers should not be allowed have the superior one.

by ilamont

1 subcomments

How does the service and support part of this work in countries that have opened the door to Chinese EVs?
Do they operate like Tesla, or can indie garages handle repairs? How long are warranties?

by renewiltord

0 subcomment

UK stats are bogus because one in five new cars there are paid for by the government under the Motability scheme. What it actually costs is hard to say because we don't know where they're measuring the price at. Motability could have an agreement, or they might be not counting the motability money spent and so on.

by JPKab

2 subcomments

It's a shame that the UK isn't making their own EVs. It's a nation with a long tradition of manufacturing and a working class hungry for opportunities.
Both Labour and the Conservative parties seem to have resigned the nation to only being a financial hub.

0 subcomment

by storus

1 subcomments

Soon UK will start taxing EVs by distance driven which might offset many EV advantages and make their disadvantages more pronounced.

by gib444

0 subcomment

Of course EVs are perhaps a net benefit to society (noise, pollution etc) but at least be honest about the cost trajectory.
Any article that doesn't mention the cost of motorway/dual carriage way electric charging is being disingenuous. PAYG is 75-90p/kWh currently. Tesla superchargers with a subscription 57p/kWh (you'll pay with time, due to being busy)
And do you think when EV ownership becomes more popular, the 4p/kWh home charging rate is going to stick around? That is an insane discount compared to daytime electricity.
The UK does not have a good, cheap solution plentiful cheap electric in the next decade or two, so any major increase in demand will mean even higher costs.

by eucryphia

1 subcomments

“Thanks to CCP money printing”
FIFY.

by CharlesLau

0 subcomment

[dead]

by yanhangyhy

0 subcomment

[dead]

by CMay

3 subcomments

"thanks to Chinese competition". More like anti-competitive practices. They can force down Chinese wages to keep labor costs down. They can require companies involved in component technologies to share their IP in order to do business in China, then replicate it and subsidize the hell out of it to push them not just out of China, but out of business globally. Then subsidize the whole final vertically integrated manufacturing of the end product so it's all cheaper and harder to compete with.
Not very free market. It's basically military and intelligence budget combined. If you can hurt auto manufacturing, you further consolidate manufacturing inside China. Then if you can get people to pay for you to spy on them through their own cars, that's well spent intelligence budget. If you reduce the portion of global manufacturing outside of China, you reduce the amount of manufacturing that can quickly pivot to wartime production like we saw during World War 2.
I'm glad that we still have sane enough people in the US that we ban these obvious and transparently bad things. It wasn't that hard to see free trade died.
Hopefully people don't still think that China's green energy initiatives are about the climate. Whatever you think about those initiatives, don't let that blind you to the legitimate questions around China's motivations.

by muyuu

4 subcomments

The treatment of our betters regarding "nudged" electrification is borderline misanthropic.
For people with a garage or a driveway who can charge at home, EVs are overwhelmingly a better option. The problem is that large swathes of the population are outside of that and you're making their lives miserable by punishing ICE car ownership.
Meanwhile, adoption numbers are thrown about ignoring that for those in optimal conditions, adoption is already very high and cannot grow much more. While for those particularly misaligned with the strengths of EVs, it will often be so painful to own one they will resist with everything they have, and in many cases they will have to admit defeat and stop driving altogether. Which I guess the government will also be content with. But it will take some time.
*typo